Moving along

It's just about quarter after 11 here and that means I'm about to head on to bed. I have some things to do tomorrow but I've spent the last few hours working on some stuff for Dana Tomes as he and the rest of Herd Racing prepare for Nashville.

I finished up the final proof of the paint scheme tonight, and it's mainly just to help the team when they go to decal the car. It's basically a two-dimensional graphic with the main design (or base, as it's called) and the decals arranged in the way it would lay on the actual car. In the future it may be the thing sent to NASCAR for approval, as it provides the best look at what will be on the car.

I still like the 3D rendering aspect of the design process. It adds a lot of realism to the schemes. Being able to place the car on the race track is something you can't do with a 2D design, and on top of that, it gives a general idea of how a car will look when everything is on the car.

I started to seriously use Photoshop today (I used something called The GIMP previously) and I must say, it's like going from a horse-drawn carriage to a Ferrari. The GIMP is an amazing program to say the least, and for the last two years it has helped me, but I discovered that there were some severe limitations to it. Photoshop affords me a great deal of flexibility in doing designs now, and though it's taking some getting used to and some experimentation, it's become my program of choice.

Undoubtedly my designs will become more and more appealing with the newfound tools at my disposal. As Matt, one of my designers, put it, "It's about time you caught up with the times."

The week continues to progress nicely, though. We still have plenty of time between now and the sponsorship announcement on the 23rd of this month by Herd Racing. As a matter of fact, if you want to go and see what's going on with them, Dana is keeping a team blog on the site. You can check it out by going to www.herdracing.com and clicking on the Team Blog button towards the bottom of the page. Check back often, too, he updates it often and it offers rare insight into the inner workings of a NASCAR race team.

That's all for now. I'm going to go catch some shuteye.

Guy Driggers